MINNEAPOLIS — As the summer season nears its end…
"Getting ready for a new season," said Vikings fan Keith Puchtel.
The cadence of downtown is picking up with excitement, and anticipation for what tends to be one of the busiest times of the year in downtown Minneapolis.
"Vikings are back in town," said fan Cory Vanvickle.
Thousands of sports fans flooded into downtown, at the same time Saturday night, for the Vikings pre-season home game. Others came out to watch the Twins take on the Rangers, seemingly reminiscent of times past.
"Any opportunity we get to spend outdoors in Minnesota in the summer you got to take it because winter sucks," said Twins diehard fan Daniel Berglund.
"Feels good to be with people and seeing all the smiling faces and the kids having a good time, food trucks, couple beers, you know," said Vanvickle.
"I'm ready for some football, I'm ready to be in a football stadium," said Carah Mabry, who traveled up from Iowa to cheer on the Vikings.
Bringing with it more traffic on the railways, slowly picking up on the roadways.
"No it wasn't too bad, we parked right here, came on the freeway it was pretty smooth," explained Berglund.
A welcomed sight, ahead of what's expected to be the greatest season yet, if you ask those ready to cheer on the home teams.
"Go Twins, lets pull off this last month and hit the playoffs that's right," said Berglund and his buddies heading into Target Field.
"Super Bowl or bust," said Puchtel.
For anyone who hasn't been downtown in quite sometime, transportation officials are urging you to plan ahead.
A boost in patrons comes at a time when Metro Transit is scaling back operations. Saturday, new changes went into effect, slightly limiting some bus route and train operations. Instead of running every 12 minutes, the light rail will run every 15 minutes.
Know your parking options, utilize ride share services and public services like Metro Transit as events in the area start to pickup in the coming weeks.
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